Man, everybody is making virus movies now. After enduring — and I say that in the best way — The Sadness, can another virus film even measure up? Gustavo Hernández’s Virus :32 is ready to try. It has an interesting hook, in which a rapidly spreading virus transforms people into intelligent, ultra-violent, extra-fast zombies.

So what is the 32? Well, after they attack, they’re left incapacitated for 32 seconds.

The streets of Montevideo are on fire and the zombies keep hunting and killing anyone who has not been infected. Yet within the sports club where Iris (Paula Silva) works as a security guard, she and her daughter Tata (Pilar Garcia) are unaware that the world is ending.

There have been so many zombie movies that I am frankly a zombie when it comes to them. Yet I did like that this movie attempts to tell the story of the bond between mother and daughter even in the face of horror. Or in the case of Louis (Daniel Hendler), he will do anything he can to save his already infected wife.

This movie also has a great location, as the giant cavernous gym creates so many opportunities for frightening moments. And that drone shot at the beginning sets up such a world to be destroyed and then to be chased within.

If you still have some love in your heart for the shambling masses of the living dead or the infected or whatever you want to call them, Virus :32 isn’t a bad use of your living minutes.

Directed and written by brothers Avel and Burlee Vang (Bedeviled), this film is about Claire Yang (Michelle Krusiec) a social worker checking in on the case of Sophie Lang (Madelyn Grace) and her parents Audrey (Ellen Wroe) and Giles (J.R. Cacia). Yet Claire’s life may be even tenser than those of her clients, as she lost her son Lucas in a hit and run accident and the aftermath broke up her marriage to Peter (Ken Kirby). Oh yeah — she also sleeps in her closet because she keeps seeing visions after that traumatic event.

Those visions increase when she visits the Yang family, so she steps away from their case. Yet Sophie keeps getting bruises that her family claims are supernatural. She’s taken away from her parents, so Claire steps in to help. She attempts to contact the spirit — a woman in white — from the Lang home, but has an out of body experience and passes out. This costs her her job and she turns to her husband after finding some closure over the death of Lucas. Yet when she comes back home, the woman in white is there and informs her that she was trying to protect Sophie from Audrey. That’s when she rushes back to the Lang home in the hopes of saving everyone.

They Live In the Grey is decent yet really feels like it could have been trimmed down somewhat. At almost two hours long, it feels like it can’t decide whether it wants to scare you or have an extended conversation. With some tighter editing, I feel that this would have been a better film, but I’d love to know the intentions of the filmmakers.

You know, I watch a lot of horror movies but I can admit to liking stuff like Romancing the Stone. So when The Lost City came out, I was pretty excited about it. And it definitely lived up to what I thought it would be.

Directed by Aaron and Adam Nee from a script by Oren Uziel and Dana Fox, from a story conceived by Seth Gordon, it stars Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), a romance author who is sick of being typecast — writecast? — by her series of books about the life of Dr. Angela Lovemore and Dash McMahon. She’s also tired of her cover model, Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), who gets more attention than her at appearances.

Meanwhile, Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) is a billionaire criminal who kidnaps her as he feels that the lost city in her new book is actually real and she knows how to get there. It’s Alan — and Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), who is a real-life version of one of her book’s characters — to the rescue. But when Jack gets taken out of the picture, can Loretta and Alan live up to what she has written?

I wasn’t expecting a movie that would change my life but instead a fun summer blockbuster that would make me forget just how strange and dark the world is becoming.

You can watch The Lost City on Paramount Plus or buy it on DVD, blu ray or 4K Ultra HD.

If you haven’t seen the WNUF Halloween Special, you should just stop reading this and do exactly that.

This spiritual sequel, directed and written by Chris LaMartina (Call Girl of Cthulhu, What Happens Next Will Scare You, WNUF Halloween Special) moves from the UHF past to the VHS, well, also past to inform of us of what happened next. But it’s also so much more.

If you ordered from Video Search of Miami or were lucky enough to be part of a tape trading crew, this movie will delight your heart beyond belief. This mixtape of footage comes from Trader Tony’s Tape Dungeon, a bootleg video operation that had been busted by the government and this release is to pay for Tony’s release.

It starts with an episode of a talk show hosted by Ivy Sparks (Melissa LaMartina) that would completely fit into the world of Ricki Lake yet also retains its local channel feel. Where WNUF felt part of the time when UHF reigned supreme, this episode is when your local affiliate was just starting to lose its hold on media and give way to large networks, as Fox became the fourth network and all of the shows that you loved like local pro wrestling and horror hosts were replaced by infomercials. We may not have known it at the time, but we were in the saddest of timelines.

Now, WNUF is an ACE channel and Ivy Sparks now hosts the show Out There, which feels like the kind of wild 90s prime time specials Fox used to air when they were the outlaw-feeling network that put alien autopsies live on the air.

I really loved the darkness at the edge of the public service announcements, the callbacks to the fate of characters from the first chapter of this story and the dread that builds as a UFO cult gets closer to being called home. This may have been inspired by the world of thirty years ago, but it’s literally the happiest I’ve been watching a movie this year.

You can buy this from the official site or check it out in person as it goes on tour. You can also get a VHS edition that comes with a printed catalog of every movie Trader Tony has for sale.

The anthology horror film used to mean a lot more, as Amicus used to make movies that stuck together as a narrative whole instead of just jamming together multiple shorts into one movie and putting them out for content. At least How Dark They Prey has an interesting handheld shot demonic beginning to get us started.

What helps is that this was made by only two directors, Adam Ambrosio, who made the “Encounter Nightly” story and Jamison M. LoCascio, who made the “Harrowing,” “Blood Beach,” and “Nelly” chapters. That allows this to have more narrative cohesion than the average — or below-average — horror portmanteau you find streaming online.

“Encounter Nightly” has a paranormal TV show meeting a woman who has seen aliens. And her husband may know a bit more about them than anyone they’ve ever encountered. “Harrowing” has two U.S. soldiers pinned down by German forces before things get really strange. “Blood Beach” — that’s perhaps a title that could have been changed so it doesn’t force comparisons to the original film — explores the Lovecraftian side of fishing. And “Nelly” has a goofy cop and the woman he’s trying to ask out get abducted by two men wearing masks from The Flintstones who are armed with chainsaws.

To be positive, I did like how the last story reconnects to the framing story, which rarely happens in modern anthology films.

How Dark They Prey is now available on Amazon Prime and will be on the Watch Movies Now YouTube channel for free soon.

I went into this movie totally blind with no idea that the band — SM6 — in it was an actual real band. Originally known as Smart Monkeys, they’re an entire family — George, Isabel, Adam, Emily, Eliana, and Jack Jones — from Geneva, Illinois. They’ve built their name over TikTok, which is probably why I had no idea who they were and if you told me they were from Geneva, Switzerland, I would have believed that as I got strong Dollydots vibes from this movie.

In case you don’t know them, they were an unknown in the U.S. yet loved in the Netherlands band that starred in the Cannon film Dutch Treat.

So now that I’ve established who SM6 are, it’s time to discuss the movie they made. Better than you learning halfway through the movie why this band sounds so good like me.

Time Pirates is a Tubi Original in which the band plays themselves. Yet we don’t see them right away. Instead, it begins with Captain Cooper (Jack Pearson) battling the dreaded Blackbeard (Richard Grieco, which when you think about it, is an inspired bit of Pirates of the Caribbean meta casting). As Blackbeard reads the tattoo on Cooper’s arm in the middle of a swordfight, they’re claimed by magical waves.

That’s when I realized that this was an Asylum film, as that level — this is not a compliment — of special effects can’t be mistaken. This was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, who directed all of the Sharknado films, and written by Marc Gottlieb (Planet of the Sharks, Jungle Run, Top Gunner: Danger Zone — which is an incredible exploitation mockbuster movie name).

Years later, in modern Los Angeles, Cooper’s ship the Red Queen is a tourist attraction in Los Angeles and the setting for SM6’s new music video. When the band finds the treasure map and turns it into new lyrics for a song, it ends up sending them into the past, where they must find Blackbeard and get back to 2022.

To do that, they must find famous female pirates Anne Bonny (Angela Cola) and Beckett (Anna Telfer, who was in Planet Dune and Aquarium of the Dead) and, of course, single multiple songs and get a magic spell from The Crone (Dee Wallace!).

Maybe because I watched this at 2 in the morning I had more youthful joy in my heart as I really liked the pop energy of the songs. Is it what I would listen to? No, but you know, the fact that people are still making movies around bands makes me happy. It’s bubblegum goofiness, but it made me laugh a few times — mainly at the bad looking effects — and it’s an interesting way to promote SM6.

You can learn more about SM6 on their official site, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

You can watch this movie on Tubi.

TMZ has launched a new series on Tubi called No BS in which they’ll present stories of some of the biggest names in pop culture.

Hosted by Harvey Levin, Charles Latibeaudiere and guest TMZ contributors, the docuseries will feature never-before-seen stories and fresh reporting that provides an eye-opening look at people who have been widely covered but never really understood, including Jennifer Lopez, Conor McGregor and Wildest Celebrity Arrests.

Ther is this moment in Popstar where Will Arnett, Eric Andre and Chelsea Peretti do a more than perfect scene of TMZ reporters laughing at celebrities while realizing that they have no lives, all while Andre’s cup keeps getting bigger. It makes me laugh every single time, but worse, it’s ruined every single time that I watch TMZ reports, because it was so true that the parody has surplanted reality.

I find it very strange that everyone on this show is so on Britney’s side when they’ve spent years contributing to her declining mental health. It really made watching this a bit strange if not upsetting. I mean, I’m not blameless, I’ve been reading the National Enquirer since Elvis died, but I’d like to think that I’m not one of the people chasing celebrities to their mental breakdowns.

But yeah — if you like TMZ and you think their shtick isn’t disingenuous, well, there’s this. I mean, it totally is disingenuous but here it still is.

You can watch this on Tubi.

If you aren’t sick of royal TV coverage yet, well, Tubi has you covered.

Written by Chip Selby (who also created Tubi’s Sins of the Father: The Green River Killer) and narrated by Peta Johnson, this film is about the life and death of Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales. Born into nobility, her wedding to Charles on July 29, 1981 was watched all over the world. When I went to college over a decade later, my work study boss had an entire office decorated with imagery of the royals but mainly Princess Diana. She even had a wastebasket with her face on it that no one was allowed to use. She was beyond beloved by the public because even though she was rich and famous, she still seemed like one of them; she was also a patron of more than a hundred charities including ones that the royal family — and many others in the 80s — avoided like AIDS, leprosy and landmines. Stephen Lee, director of the UK Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers, would say “Her overall effect on charity is probably more significant than any other person’s in the 20th century.”

I remember where I was the day she died, as inglorious as it was. It was late, after being at the Canfield Fair and we were in a Taco Bell when it came on the news and everyone just stared at the screen. This was before the internet and when moments seemed stil able to stop time.

Diana also endured unprecedented press coverage of her every move — this documentary says that the very press that chased her into her death in a Paris car accident reported on her as she died in the street — and an uncaring husband who probably wasn’t able to come to terms with her popularity.

She started as a shy woman but became an advocate for mental health, revealing her eating disorder to the world. By the end of her life — even beyond — she became someone special to so many people. As her brother the Earl Spencer said in his eulogy, “Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.”

This speech was quite controversial. But then again, the Queen originally said nothing when she died. Perhaps the family could not comprehend that the people loved someone more than them, someone they had been told by tabloids and decrees not to believe in.

This film tries to explain how she died, but perhaps what’s most important is to know that she lived. And for as stupid as it is to have royalty today, sometimes someone special can emerge from that circus and inspire us.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I may have never seen The Wedding Pact or, let’s face it, any Hillary Duff movies before, as she was born in the time when teen entertainment was too young for me. But what you may not know is that I have a hidden love for romcoms and when the sequel to a movie I never saw before crossed my way, I totally watched it.

Back in 2014 — or a few months in the timeline of this movie — Elizabeth (Duff) and Mitch finally got married after a wedding pact that started back in college. This movie decides to take that cute story and inject utter despair, as Elizabeth is pregnant and her husband is now dead. She’s moved away to live with her sister and is trying to get her life started again when her mother-in-law Donna (Leslie Easterbrook from Police Academy!) serves her with papers, asking for custody of a baby that hasn’t even been born yet.

Luckily, Kevin Pyle (Connor Trinneer) is a lawyer who overhears her problems at a coffee shop — this movie has more coffee being ordered than a Starbucks on the first day of pumpkin spice latte season — and realizes that his sister Robin (Gail O’Grady, Criminal Minds) is the one behind the lawsuit. He always tries to help people, so he decides that he’ll handle Elizabeth’s case for $2 an hour.

Richard Riehle shows up and man, that dude is always great. I kind of liked the turn by Elizabeth’s ex Jake (Scott Michael Campbell) too. The movie moves pretty quickly and hey, any film that has a judge that has a puppet dog and no one complains, well, I kind of like strange quirks that just randomly appear.

This film was directed and written by Matt Berman, who also made the first movie, as well as Big Wind On Campus (Kevin P. Fairley, who plays the judge in this, was in that movie), Hollywood and Wine (which was co-directed and written by Fairley), Model Citizen (which also had Fairley, Campbell and Bob Bancroft, who show up in this), Killer Defense and Manipulated (which has a dream cast: Traci Lords, Michael Paré, Greg Evigan, John de Lancie and Judy Landers).

I’ll get back to the weird stuff the site is known for soon enough. But if you also like romantic films and a good cry, well, here it is.

The Wedding Pact 2: The Baby Pact is now available on major streaming and cable platforms from Freestyle Digital Media, including iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, DirecTV, Dish, iNDEMAND, Vudu and FandangoNOW. You can learn more on the official website.

A sequel to the 2017 film The Wicked One, this movie has Adam and Alex Lawson returning to Carpenter Falls for one more night battling Colin Miller, also known as The Wicked One, a serial killer who has haunted them for a decade.

Adam and Alex are driving their son Daniel to his band’s gig in Carpenter Falls — I don’t know what’s worse, going back to a place where you were almost killed or having parents drive you around to band gigs — along with daughters Kendall and Jenna. Meanwhile, Miller has gotten into the heads of two other teenagers — Myles and Madeline — whose parents survived the murders only to be killed by their kids. If you start getting The Strangers vibes that may not be unintentional.

As far as direct-to-streaming slashers go, The Wicked Ones isn’t bad. It doesn’t break any new ground, but then I often think that we watch slashers because they provide us with familiar comfort. It does have a scene where a guy plays with himself in a cemetery before getting killed, so there’s that.

Wicked Ones is now available on VOD and will be released on blu ray in November from Wild Eye Releasing. You can also watch The Wicked One on Tubi.